Business Research Individual Work 1 Week 12 - Essay Example

Research Reports Research reports are an important aspect since they aid in the improvement and success of any organization. They communicate research results, offer strategic recommendations, and or conclusions to management or as well as other specific audiences (Zikmund, 2013). Despite existence of custom-made features for specific projects, reports have some conventions of report format that are universal. Some of the conventions of report format include; Abstract, Introduction, Background (Literature review and Hypotheses), Research methods, Result, Discussion (Implications, Limitations and Future research), Conclusions, References and finally Appendices (Zikmund, 2013).

The SME Research and Statistics is an example of business report that tries to meet the conventional report format standards. In the report, the author Andrea Prince incorporates some of the components of a conventional report. SME Research and Statistics contains an executive summary, an Introduction, Research methods (data source and definition), Summary, and Discussion, Appendix and finally References (Pierce, 2013). The research report lacks components such as Background Literature. Thus, the report fails to meet the standards of a conventional report format since the author never incorporated the entire components as outlined in the textbook.

In what ways was the research report you identified presented differently? Despite the existence of some conventional standards of report formats, some reports do not strictly adhere to the format. For instance, the SME Research Profile was incoherent and presented differently in various forms (Pierce, 2013). First, the author merged various components in the report. A good example is the merger of Introduction component with that of the Background thereby forming one part. The merge mingles vital information in the introduction and background segments thereby forming the Introduction component.

Similarly, Andrea merges the Summary and the Discussion segments thus making it rather difficult to distinguish various issues in a quicker and easier manner. The situation is uncommon in conventional report format whereby all of the components are separated and independently presented. Consequently, the section on Data source and Definition seems different from the conventional format of Research methods component (Pierce, 2013).How might this impact the way the report is interpreted? Existence of conspicuous differences between the conventional research report format and the SME Research Profile have significant influences in the interpretation and understanding of the research report.

First, the merging of various components of research into one part makes information retrieval a bit hard and time-consuming (Pierce, 2013). For instance, one spends a lot of time in trying to distinguish between the introduction and the backgrounds information in the SME Research Profile. The same problem occurs during the interpretation of Discussion and Summary components of the research report. Secondly, SME Research Profile is arranged in a different manner compared to the conventional standard report format.

The scenario occurs when the author places appendix before the references component. Such arrangement is unconventional in the standard research format and causes many challenges during reading, interpretation, and analysis of the report (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Thus, one might experience various challenges in trying to analyze the SME Research Profile as compared to a report that adheres to the standard research format. Therefore, in order to ensure easy and proper interpretation of research reports, various components should be presented in a coherent and conventional manner.

The initiative promotes accurate and proper understanding and utilization of research information.ReferencesBryman, A., & Bell, E. (2011). Business research methods. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. Pierce, A. (2013). SME Research and Statistics. Industry Canada. Retrieved July 29, 2014 from http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/h_02840.html?Open&pv=1 Zikmund, W. G. (2013). Business research methods. Mason, OH: South-Western. 619